Agenda and minutes

Members are reminded of their obligation under the Council’s Code of Conduct to disclose any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests and Other Significant Interests in any matter(s) to be considered or being considered at the meeting. These are explained in the Code of Conduct on the Council’s website at Code of conduct for members – Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council (tmbc.gov.uk).

Members in any doubt about such declarations are advised to contact Legal or Democratic Services in advance of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest made in accordance with the Code of Conduct.

The Panel is asked to consider an application for a new premises licence under Section 17 of the Licensing Act 2003.

At the time of the publication of this report the 28-day consultation period had not ended.  An addendum will be published week commencing 3 April 2023 detailing the Representations that have been received, together with the Annexes.

The Panel gave careful consideration to an application for a premises licence in respect of Kentfield Estate, Ashtree Farm, Teston Road, Offham, Kent, ME19 5RL.

Careful consideration was given to the written report of the Director of Central Services and Monitoring Officer, the application set out at Annex 1 and the written representations received during the statutory consultation period (as set out at Annex 7 to the report).  Furthermore, consideration was given to the verbal representations of the applicant, five ‘other persons’ and Environmental Health.

The Panel felt that the main objections could be summarised as follows:

·       Public nuisance created by the noise that would be emitted from the premises; and

·       Dangers posed to public safety by traffic issues, particularly near to the access and egress points to the premises.

The Panel were of the view that there was insufficient information in the operating schedule to ensure that the licensing objectives could be promoted.  Even after obtaining quite a lot of additional information from the applicant orally during the hearing, the Panel was still not satisfied that the licensing objectives could be promoted if the application were granted.

There was insufficient detail about how the events would be managed, the number of staff that would be in attendance and the quality of training that would be given to staff.  There was also no traffic management plan.

The Panel felt also that the applicant should have made more effort to liaise with local residents and the responsible authorities.  The Panel felt that the issue of noise nuisance should have been re-considered and it was inadequate to rely on a 5 year old noise nuisance report, which was not included in the application, especially when the numbers that the applicant was now hoping to entertain was up to 950 per event.

Having taken into account all representations, the Panel

RESOLVED: That the application for a new premises licence be refused.

The Chairman to move that the press and public be excluded from the remainder of the meeting during consideration of any items the publication of which would disclose exempt information

There were no items considered in private.